While Mayor Greg Ballard and his team plan to announce today their intent to bid for the 2012 Super Bowl, sources within the league said Indianapolis Colts’ owner Jim Irsay will be the determining factor.

“They could be the Emerald City, and it still comes down to one thing,” said an executive for a West Coast team. “Whether the other NFL owners want to do this for Jim Irsay. It’s not unanimous, but a number of owners think he deserves this.”

But it’s more than a popularity contest.

“This can get pretty complicated,” said the West Coast executive. “There’s a lot of ‘I’ll scratch your back you scratch mine,’ mentality here on a number of levels. Back-room deals and under-the-table handshakes? You bet.”

Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp. Ltd., a Chicago-firm that advises a number of NFL teams on business operations, thinks Irsay’s clout among the other 31 team owners is rising.

“The weather in Indianapolis will always be a problem, but I think it will come to a point where the NFL owners will say, “Hey, there’s a reason we’re doing this,’” Ganis said. “And that reason is to pay back Jim Irsay for what he’s done for the league.”

Houston and Glendale, Ariz. are also expected to bid for the 2012 Super Bowl.

Do you think Irsay has the clout to bring the big game home?

ADVERTISEMENT

Managing Editor

Schouten is an Indianapolis native and Indiana University graduate who joined IBJ in 2006 after stints at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Arizona Republic. He covered the real estate beat for most of those years, and launched the Property Lines blog, before taking over as managing editor in March 2013.

Schouten has been honored for investigative and enterprise reporting by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the Alliance of Area Business Publications and the Society of Professional Journalists in Indianapolis. During his tenure as moderator of Property Lines, the blog was recognized twice as the best among business journals by the AAPB.

Schouten serves as secretary of the board of governors of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and is set to serve as the organization's president in 2016. He is treasurer of the Indianapolis Press Club Foundation, and a board member of the Indianapolis Public Schools Education Foundation.

Multimedia

Videos

Nominations

Events

On Tuesday, April 24 IBJ & Indiana University will host Education-to-Employment (E2E) Convergence, a panel discussion focused on how Indiana can build a talent strategy around a more highly educated workforce. E2E will identify examples of successful partnerships to better integrate college graduates into our workforce from around the state. Register today.